


Where We Take This Road

by SkippingStone



Series: Minutes after Agony [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: A roadtrip to love, F/M, Minor Wanda Maximoff/Vision, No Endgame Spoilers, On the Run, Rating May Change, Tags will be added, between CW and IW, prequel to Minutes After Agony
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-08
Updated: 2019-06-04
Packaged: 2019-06-23 20:12:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,841
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15614124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SkippingStone/pseuds/SkippingStone
Summary: The years between Civil War and Infinity War.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I owe nothing. nothing. 
> 
> The title is a line from Sleeping at Last _Already Gone_

She catches up with Steve in a back alley in Belgrade. He leans against a brick wall and his arms are crossed over his chest. The moment she steps out of the shadow, he pushes himself into a standing position and steps into her immediate reach. For a moment they look at each other and Natasha inspects his bruises, first with her eyes and then with her fingertips, tracing around the edges. All the while, he watches her, observes her eyes scanning his face.

“I am sorry, Steve.” 

“This is not... You have nothing to...” but he doesn't finish his sentence. He reaches for her hand and lowers it and his eyes follow the movement, he doesn't let go of her hand and then he exhales heavily, exhales the stress and the anger and the disappointment, because all these emotions had nothing to do with her. They were complicated and confusing, no doubt, but they had nothing to do with her.

“Don't apologize.” He tries again, this time the words are calculated and sharp. He means them nevertheless.

His gestures and the tension around his lips translate to the grief boiling underneath all of the anger and Natasha, whose hand was still resting in his, draws him closer and takes the last small step still separating them to hug him a second time in the same week. It lasts and she doesn't plan to let go before he does. He had lost a lot these last couple of days. She did as well. 

They calm in each others arms. They breath each other in and are reminded, for a moment, of home. 

After a while, Steve starts to rub her back before leaning away from her and shifting his weight back onto the heels of his feet. 

“Where is Bucky?” She asks then and looks up into his eyes. They are still holding hands.

“Quinjet. He is waiting for us,”

“Where are we going?” She thinks about Clint and Wanda and Sam and that other guy and how their first course of action should be to break them free 

“Wakanda. There might be a way to reprogram whatever it is that messed up his brain.” Steve steps back and nods into the opposite direction of where she came from. 

“Steve...” Wakanda wasn't the best place for her to go right now, not after what she did. 

“T'Challa expects an apology. Otherwise you're fine.” He takes a step towards the street at the other end of the alley and that is when they let go of each others hand. 

“What's with Wanda and Sam a-”

“Right after Wakanda.” she nods and falls into step with him and as soon as they reach the entrance of the alley, he lays an arm around her shoulder and they fall into the routine of their usual cover.

He had become a reasonable enough actor these last couple of years and an almost good liar if needed be. Thus, he starts to ramble about nothing and she laughs and smiles at him and they wash into the night unnoticed.

*

Wakanda is breathtaking from what little Natasha has the chance to see. She decides that she wants to come back. Someday. 

For now, they needed to get distance between themselves and everything else, really. They were staying in a suburb of Margao for the last couple of weeks. White people come and go often enough here for them to not draw too much attention on themselves and Steve's Portuguese was almost better then hers. It was easy to pretend they were some rich couple with some connection to some General during colonial regime. She hated it.

She hated that they needed to separate from Wanda and Sam just as much, no matter how temporary the thing was. There had been two close calls within three weeks and there was either total seclusion, which they had learned the hard way would turn them crazy, sitting on each other like hens, railing up each others nerves, or lay low in smaller groups. It was sorely for distraction.

The south-west monsoon had broken at the beginning of June and the sun suddenly seemed less relentless. It drew Nat onto the front porch of their small house where she was sitting down, enjoying the wind that carried the heavy smell of the ocean all the way here. 

Down the road she could hear the group of children before she could see them. 

Since the rains had eased down, Steve had found himself gathered by children every evening down by the soccer field. It had started in front of the house with two of the neighbor children and ended up there. When they turn the corner, there are two boys that run to the house just across from the little shop at the end of their road and the remaining five kids find their homes on the way and become two when Steve finally reaches her. 

He looks like a fricking European soccer player with his hair in a bun and the ball under his arm. It would be disgusting if it wasn't so endearing. It was endearing mostly however because he was carrying Aesha on his back, the girl from the next house over who one day had snuck into their backyard to retrieve the ball her brother had kicked there. 

As she did every evening, Nat reaches into her pocket of her dress for the candy she placed there for Aesha and Aditya. As soon as Nat stood up, Aesha slid down from Steve's back, hugs him around his hips and together with her brother comes running to her, stopping right at the bottom of the stairs. 

“Thanks for occupying him.” she speaks the words in a thick french accent and grins at the two kids and places a red candy in their waiting palms. They thank her and Aditya pops it right into his mouth before high-fiving Steve and running over to his family home. Before Aesha follows him, she draws a perfectly round and smooth pebble from her pocket and presents it to her. With a smile spreading over her whole face, she takes it.

“This is a very beautiful one, thank you, Aesha.” The girl smiles just as bright and then runs off. 

Together, her and Steve walk inside and she places the stone on the side table by the door with all the others. They don't speak at first. Steve goes for a bottle of water and Nat pulls out the dinner Steve had prepared before he left.

“Fatherhood would suit you well.” 

Nat doesn't really know where the teasing words come from and how they slipped past her brain's filter. They avoided such topics, shipped around them as if instinctively knowing that coming to close would wrack their barely stable boat.

Subsequently, the words ring heavy in the air between them when he doesn't answer right away but fills the food from the pot onto plates and pushes the first one into the microwave. When the machine dings and he stirs the vegetables around on the plate only to restart the microwave, she wonders if he thinks about Sharon. She ignores that it makes her stomach feel funny. 

After he pushes the second plate into the microwave, he turns to the freezer and Nat doesn't hid her surprise when he pulls out a bottle of vodka she didn't even know was there. She wondered how that had happened. 

“Is today my birthday?” She asks, and maybe, she considers, the moment was over. The alcohol was a suitable distraction. “It's a good bottle, Rogers. Where'd you get that from?” His name slips past her lips when her tongue remembers the way they used to neck each other, with ease and mischief, their words colored in sarcasms and deep friendship and respect. 

Somehow that way had gotten lost between cover up stories and accents and running away from their past into an unpredictable future. 

“At a gas station in Lapland.” Lapland was seven weeks ago. 

Wanda doesn't drink. Sam is a Bourbon kinda guy and Steve had to find other ways to forget. This was for her. 

She pulls out two glasses and serves them a shot each. She pushes his designated glass over to him with her fingertips. 

He takes it without a second thought, pretends to be oblivious to the fact it didn't effect him the way he sometimes wished it did. He reaches for the bottle and pours a second round, downs it and takes the plates over to the small table. Out of the corner of his eyes he watches 'Tascha ditching the glasses and bringing the bottle. 

They settle down and stir the heat from their meals and continue to not talk to each other. 

Steve thinks about the Japanese woman this morning that looked at him strange and wonders if this was a call for them to leave soon, maybe tomorrow, right after 'Tascha had gotten the intel she had worked on for weeks. 

“What are we doing.” He knows the answer, doesn't really lifts the sentence into a question, doesn't really understand why he says them. Or maybe he does but he is handling the truth of it like a ball of lava that threatens to burn the skin from his hands and expose his nerves.

He knows the moment the words hit the air between them that he shouldn't have said it. It was as if he expected a different outcome, her having found some kind of solution in the three hours he had left the house. 

“We are running from the law.” she says and separates the lentils from the potato chunks on her plate. 

“Is this our life now?” This time it is a question. It is daring of him to ask, it carries heat into this half-ass conversation. He didn't fully understand where the need to rail himself and her up came from. 

“Do you miss risking your ass every single day? … Enjoy not being a hero for a bit.” He understands that her words are informed by her own joy to shape-shift cleverly through whatever the situation needed her to be. 

“It isn't as if we weren't still doing exactly that.” He answers, not intending to accuse her of anything. But her words hit a nerve. _The righteous men, pretending you could live without war._ He had since thought hard and long about those words. Had digged deep for a version within himself that didn't subscribe to the truth of those words. 

He couldn't find it at first, knowing how much it frightened him to think of a possible life in which he needed to be someone he didn't know how to be. A father for instant. To be a soldier was easy. He knew how war worked. It was gruel, but it was easy. He knew how to support the right course. It was in him to know and to know how to fight for it.

What frightened him was not a world without war, it was a world in which he didn't have a purpose. In which the soldier that he had chosen to become when he signed off his old life in 1942 held no longer any meaning. He expected that absolutely nothing was left now of the man he once was and the desires and wishes this person had. And that had made him believe that the part in him that wanted a family had been left in the ice.

But suddenly, the choice was no longer a world with or without war. It was a world in which he fought evil from the shadows, no longer a part of the world that was still and would always be at war with itself. He wasn't a soldier any longer. He was a fugitive, ..

And yet there is Natasha. Funny and kind and gorgeous. Always at his side, believing into the very core of him. Believing that together they did the right thing.

“I am going to the city tomorrow.” He is ripped from his thoughts and nods. 

She gets up. Takes the dishes. 

“Can you imagine begin a mom?” he picks up on her earlier comment.

“I can imagine it, yes.” She takes a swing directly from the bottle. 

He can imagine it, too. 

“Why are you with me then? You could pull it off, start over, become someone else.”

“I would always look over my shoulder.” She is right, so would he. But they did that now all the same.

“And that is your only reason? Why-” She laughs bitterly and he feels as if he needs to stop tasking questions. 

She puts down a clean plate with much more force than needed be. But she seems to find composure after another sip of the vodka. She turns to him fully, crosses her arms over her chest and looks straight at him when she speaks the next words.

“I want to be with you.“ Her words carry a sense of importance, an insistence to be heard. “You have never made me feel like I was a bad person in all the things I did wrong.”

“You didn't...” she doesn't give him the room to make her feel better. 

“I have never been more myself. I like who I am when I am with you.”

He takes a step towards her. And she lets him. Even lowers her arms and her shoulders. Lowers her guard, for him. His heart pounds in his chest and he is sure she hears it. He is convinced. But then she changes the topic back to what they started on.

“I can't have children. Even if I wanted to.” She shakes her head when she says theses words and bitterness presses her lips into a something that resembles a smile. “I can't believe I am saying this again.” she whispers and reaches for the bottle. The movement turns her away from him.

Steve knits together his eyebrows and confusion is the first emotion that settles before irritation joins and then maybe... he doesn't know what that feeling in his rib cage is that makes him want to hug her.

“Thank you for bringing me this. It is appreciated.” She holds up the bottle as if saluting him and slips past him and into her room. 

*

When Natasha rushes into the house the next day, she goes straight for the miscellaneous possession that had accumulated over the last few weeks. 

Steve, having heard her come, steps out of the bathroom, his eyebrows raised in question. 

“Tony is in Mumbai.” She explains while she comes to a stop beside the side table at the door. 

Steve throws the towel he has in his hands inside the room and nods. 

“It could be a coincident.” 

“It's never a coincident.” Steve nods again and Natasha picks a pebble and throws the rest out the backdoor were they blend back with nature. Steve places the footballs on the front porch.

They are gone before anyone can ask any questions. 

*

Steve and Natasha meet Wanda and Sam in Thessaloniki, Greece. They buy anonymity and a few weeks in a beach house on an island in the Mediterranean. 

There are no children to inspire domestic or parental emotion and suddenly the idea to become anyone else, to run and go into hiding for the rest of their lives, becomes an insane memory, unreal and transparent. Not that it was a real idea, anyway. 

They are a team again. And while they objectively were not safer in a group of four, it felt like it. 

There is word of HYDRA recruiting and it makes sense. Without Captain America and The Avengers, there is something akin to hope. They shatter this hope at every corner and become a ghost story along the way. They don't work alone. T'Challa assigned two special forces. They know Tony is working on it, too. 

They dismantle a small HYDRA sleeper cell in Istanbul thanks to Natasha's relentless effort. 

The mission ends in a fight. It was to be anticipated and they are prepared. 

For all their preparing, Steve ends up with a graze shot on his left leg when he pushes Wanda out of the line of fire, even though she could have easily shielded the bullet herself. Sam dresses the wound, while Natasha and Wanda tidy up any evidence of them ever having been there. They leave before police arrives. 

In the quinjet, Steve and Wanda hug it out. Wanda is shaken up and Steve apologizes for intervening. He didn't understand where the stupid had came from. 

Natasha doesn't speak a word to him for the whole flight. 

Later, Steve knocks on her door. She resumes her silence. 

“Sam has dinner ready.” He calls while he knocks. He waits for another moment and then decides to back down. It's then that her door opens. 

“How is you leg.” She asks but doesn't look at him and that is unusual for her. 

“It's fine. It's nothing.” He walks back to her door and she suddenly takes a step back into her room.

“Why did you do that?” She pushes further, holding the door handle, still not looking at him.

“I made a mistake.” 

“She had that! She was save.”

“'Tascha-” he doesn't see why he would need to apologize to her for what he did. 

“You don't shield people with your body. Its reckless.” There is poison in her words.

“You hypocrite.” He whispers and thinks back to that time in Sam's car when they where under attack from the Winter Soldier.

It seems that she knows very well what he is hinting at. So she looks up, presses her teeth together. They stare at each other and Steve thinks about the scar over her left hip. It makes him angry. It makes his stomach hurt because he needs her to see herself the way he did.

“I am not-” 

He pushes into the room, slams the door shut.

“Don't dare say what you are about to say.” 

“I am replaceable.” and she says it. She says it quietly and it is clear that she speaks the words because she believes in them. 

Steve inhales sharply and lifts his hands to his face to bury it there for a second while he shakes his head violently. Then he pushes both his hands through his hair and then reaches for her. Reaches for her hand and draws her into his arms, hugs her and buries his hand in her hair and she digs her fingers into his shoulders and presses her whole body against his.

“It's not true. It's not true.” he whispers after he lowers his head and rests his cheek on her hair.

For a while she doesn't respond and Steve tries to calm the raging storm under his skin. It helps that she is in his arms.

“It frightened me. And it's dangerous that it frightens me so much. I couldn't breath when you hit the ground.” She confesses to the beat of his heart under her ear. 

He knows what he wants to say to that, but he doesn't know how. He wants to say that just thinking about her getting hurt makes his skin crawl. That it drives him insane when she goes on a mission without him. That he trusts her fully to know what to do, but that it frightens him to the bones. He wants to make clear that he got her, but there were so many factors involved in doing the right thing here. 

So he remains silent, but he needs a way to express all the words that are stuck at the backside of his throat and he kisses her temple, once, but his lips linger and a surge of new words, unexpected words, come flowing in and they tie nooses around his rib cage. 

His hands slowly travel to her shoulders and he kisses her temple a second time and then gently pushes her away. When she looks up at him, her eyes are wet but she presses her teeth together with all her might and her lips form a line. She nods once.

“Sam and Wanda wait for us.” She whispers and her voice shakes. She turns away from him and walks out of the room. He closes his eyes and tries to inhale deeply so he could follow her, but it hurts and he groans into the now empty space around him and it resonates with the empty space within him.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There migght be another two weeks until the next chapter. It's my birthday weekend next week and it's going to be crazy.
> 
> Disclaimer: Marvel owes everything.

Natasha thinks about it a lot. That evening in India and that conversation she had with Steve about their lives and about children. She doesn't know why. She had long since accepted that motherhood wasn't something that would happen for her. But the thoughts persisted. 

When she first started at S.H.I.E.L.D., and when Clint showed her that it was possible to have both, to be both parent and spy, she indulged in the idea sometimes. She had given herself an hour once or twice to just imagine how it could be. And then she laughed it away, put every feeling neatly in a box and stored it in a far corner of her heart. 

And that was not even considering she couldn't have children. Her body was simply not able to bear children. That was taken from her. It was cruel and she practiced indifference in the face of it every day. 

There was this idea stuck in her head for a few month now, ever since Wakanda. She thought about Bucky and how there were people there that were working on rehabilitating his brain. She heard things about what else they could do, she saw some of their technology. It made her wonder if there was maybe the possibility to right the damage done to her reproduction system. 

But that was were she got stuck every single time. What if they could help her. Give that choice back to her. After all, she didn't ask for more than a choice. However, what would she do with that choice? She tried almost everyday to find an answer for herself. (When she contemplates it, the memories of India are never far).

Deep in her heart she knew what she wanted. And that made it a problem. Because suddenly, in this hypothetical world in which she had a choice, she still couldn't make the decision in favor of a child. Maybe before Leipzig. Maybe there was this slight possibility to reshape her life back then, to make space for motherhood. 

The moment she opened the way for Steve's escape, she had lost that possibility. This life they led now, it had no place for a child. She could never ensure it's safety. 

And she wouldn't leave Steve. So there was that. It should be a simple and clear conclusion. But it wasn't.

* 

There are five seconds of pure courage that make her speak up. After a training session, Wanda had already left the beach, but her ears wouldn't have made a difference. Secrets were rare these days. Secrets would compromise their security.

She steps up to Steve and Sam throws a bottle of water in her direction. 

“I need to go to Wakanda.” 

And it is not that she needed the courage to tell him that, it was five seconds in which she lets her heart speak, she overrides her strictly logical argumentation. It's the choice that she wants. It's letting even the last bit of her past go. It's a cut. Reset. New start. She tells herself.

Steve's eyes fill with questions. He doesn't voice them.

“Sure, we can fly tonight.” She had thought about going alone. The island, however, isn't a save place to stay without the quinjet. 

Natasha nods, opens the bottle of water and walks up the wood path to the house. Thinks about letting Wanda know.

Steve watches her go. 

“What's the plan?” Sam asks when she is out of earshot. 

“I don't know.” he simply answers and shrugs his shoulders. He hadn't noticed that Sam was offering him a bottle as well until it hits him on the arm. 

“Ouch! Why would you do that?” He finally turns his eyes away from watching Natasha go.

“You deserve it. More important: How do you not know?” 

“What do you mean?” Steve is irritated when he looks at Sam. 

“What do I mean?” He makes a pause for dramatic emphasis, shortly lifts his thumb and index finger to his nose before he gets up from the ground and faces Steve with a look that can be described as one part teasing and one part pure seriousness. He doesn't really get how that one works, either.

“You two are truly ridiculous.” He also walks past him and follows Wanda and Nat.

“Sam! Hey. Talk to me. Pal...” 

But Sam only lifts his arm, he laughs and shakes his head and continues his path to the house. 

*

When they reach Wakanda in the early morning of the next day - it's just before sunrise, they are expected by T'Challa, Nat had called ahead she wasn't entirely sure they would have been able to enter the city without permission . They are lead to rooms in the palace and Natasha is off right away. Later in the morning, they are invited for breakfast with T'Challa. After, they have a meeting discussing strategic procedures. Natasha is not participating. 

There is an incredible training range under the palace and she meets them there in the later afternoon. She stands by the side for a while, watching while they finish their session. They notice her one by one and Sam is first to wave her over while Wanda and Steve finish up.

“You all right!?” Sam nods up at her, getting right to the point. 

“Sam.” Steve steps to his side, a warning quality to his ton.

“What!”

“No, he is right. I came to talk to you.” She smiles at Steve and he nods his head, looking at her too serious and Nat doesn't like it.

“I wanted to let you know that I need to undergo a miner medical procedure. There is no reason to worry, I am completely fine.” She nods when she is finished speaking, indicating that there is nothing more that she wants to say. 

Sam lifts his head, apparently waiting for more information. Natasha just smiles at him and nods towards the exit.

“I am going to leave you to it. We meet at dinner.” 

Steve remains silent, the look of seriousness locked onto his features. He trusts her enough not to ask any further. He also worries too much not to. 

He watches her go, hears Sam tease Wanda about more information but doesn't listen to their words. She is gone for a moment when he throws cation to the wind and jogs to the door to follow her out.

“Hey man! NOT COOL.” Sam shouts, but the door falls shut behind him with Wanda's voice raising in his defend.

He catches up with Nat at the elevator.

“Nat, do you have a minute?” She had clearly heard him coming, still she stayed head turned towards the elevator doors.

“I don't want to lie to you, Steve.”

“Then don't.” 

“It's not that easy.” He contemplates the words and can't come to a conclusion over what they might mean. It's strange, because with Nat everything came easy. It's just how they worked. There are no lies, not since that incident on the ship. They talk about everything. It ensures their safety. 

The elevator doors open and Nat huffs before shaking her head and finally turns around to face him. 

“It's private.” She says then. She still doesn't look him in the eyes. She looks straight ahead, looking through him. She looks uncomfortable and her skin looks unusually white and he thinks that maybe he had gone too far. That realization hits him low and he regrets having gone after her. 

“Look, just let me know if you need something.” He decides to say and tries to catch her eyes but she still simply looks through him.

“Of course.” She smiles but it doesn't reach her eyes. He nods at her and turns around to walk back to the gym. All this had accomplishes was that he wanted to know even more than before what the issue was. He was also aware that he had wasted his chance to initiate a conversation between them. 

*

After dinner, Steve sits down with Shuri and she catches him up on the progress concerning Bucky. He had hoped that maybe Bucky had left cryogenic sleep and he would have a chance to actually see him and speak to him and spend time with him, now that life had changed so drastically. Well, not that that really mattered in the whole spectrum of weirdness that was their life. It really just was a deep seeded wish to spend time with him and to catch up. Again, that wasn't worded very well. 

That thought captured his mind that night when he was laying in his dark room. Shuri had let him know that it would take at least another month. Timing, in other words wasn't great. 

He considers whether there was a chance to come back. 

Steve was aware that this couldn't be a regular occasion. Wakanda couldn't be their home base. They were essentially, all of them, war criminals and this country on the way of building political and economical connections to the world. It just wasn't an option, they couldn't be seen here. What they could do was conduct secret missions together, work to undermine and smash the underground criminal system that allowed HYDRA to flourish and succeed. It was necessary and out weighted the political complications of Wakanda withholding extradition. 

If ever Nat had to come here again for follow up examinations or anything else that she needed to be here for, he concluded, they had to think about her going alone. Whatever that meant for him. 

Natasha was more important than anything he wanted. Bucky was safe here and welcome and that was what mattered most. One day, when all of this was over they would get their chance. 

In his heart he felt how strongly he needed for his old and his new life to merge, to become one and Bucky was that bridge. He could finally let go, could safely store the time before the ice within the narrative of his presence and not be haunted by it any longer. It, his old and his new life, felt strongly like two separate entities and this, he had learned, wasn't good on his mental state. 

It was simple, he needed to close this chapter of his life so he could fully except his new truth, which was, to be honest, no longer new. Had long since become an essential part of his identity. So much so that the memories before the ice had started to feel almost unreal. Not entirely, of course, it wasn't so easy these days to forget, but he didn't hold on to them with such force anymore. 

Sometimes, especially in the first few month after they found him, he had this sense of regret, wished he had died rather than navigate through the twenty-first century life he had been faced with. He despised this thought now. Just imagining would have never met Nat. Nat is the first person on his mind. But he feels collectively for his team - his team, he shakes his head, thinks about Tony, rubs his hands over his face and inhales deeply in order to let the sentiment pass. And when it passes, when he acknowledges how much he missed the people that had become his family and how thankful he is for Sam and Wanda still being with him, Natasha is who stays in front of his mind's eye. 

*

They don't see Natasha much in the next couple of days. They go on a mission without her on day five, together with the Wakandan Team. They are able to dislodge a cell in Tunisia and stop an essential transshipment point for HYDRA advanced weapons into Africa. 

On the last evening, (Nat had announced at breakfast that she was ready to leave the next day,) Steve had found himself a spot just outside the city, a rock that lurked away from a small woodland area. He allowed himself to sit in the sun. He brought a pencil and his sketchbook, the one Nat had snatched from his room at the facility before meeting him in Belgrade. It was one of two, the other was completed with drawing from everything and everyone he didn't want to forget from before the ice. There were a couple ones from his ma in there. 

He had shown Nat one night and her eyes had been big and filled with emotion and she had shown so much appreciation for him to have shared this with her. She commented on how much he looked like his ma and it had warmed his heart to hear that.

“It's breathtaking.” 

He hears Nat's footsteps before he hears her voice and he feels her presences before he consciously takes note of her. 

“It is.” he replies, looking over his shoulder and watches as she sits down beside him. 

“You' alright?” he follows up and watches her while she exhales long and evenly, not taking her eyes from the scenery. 

She nods and he does too.

“Everything went well.”

“Was there a possibility it wouldn't?”

“No, not really. There was the chance it wouldn't be successful.”

Again, he simply nods, not wanting to do the same mistake again to push her into telling him whatever it was she wasn't ready to share. 

He starts telling her about the mission and she listens, she concentrates on the details and a seriousness befalls her face not befitting the view they are enjoying. She asks a number of questions and leads the conversation to the topic of where they would go next. 

After such a mission it would make sense to lay incredibly low for a while. Either that or push the next operation into the very near future. In addition, they still couldn't be sure of Tony's intentions. There was a chance Mumbai had been a coincident. It could also have been a warning, making sure they knew that he knew, at each given moment, how to find them. 

Natasha wasn't so sure about that. They were good in what they did, always a step ahead always below the radar. Also, it was hard after all, to ascribe Tony vicious intent. 

“I liked Margao.” Steve suddenly says and a smile slips on her face. 

“You liked it because it was warm.” She assumes and rubs her shoulder against his. She understood how much he enjoyed the sun.

“It was easy living.” he adds and she agrees with a soft nod and he takes her hand in his. 

For a moment, she doesn't really know how to feel she is so surprised. It's in that second before her chest constricts and she is overwhelmed by the threat that he would let go again. 

She realizes in that exact moment, that she loves him. 

Everything falls into place and the raging storm under her skin finally calms enough for her to see clear. See what they are and what she wants them to be and suddenly, it doesn't make sense to her that she ever thought differently about her feelings for him.

“It was.” she hears herself reply. 

She looks down at their hands and turns it so she can interweave her fingers with his. For a while, both stare at their hands, losing themselves in their thoughts.

 _What are we._ The words echo in her thoughts and she wonders if he meant much more then than she had anticipated. Hope flares up. 

“Tell me about Bucky. Are there news?” Again, instinct takes over and she leads the conversation, fighting her revelation.

He tells her about Shuri's progress and that it wouldn't be long until they could wake him up. He tells her that maybe he would come back for that, everyone agreed that it would make sense. In any case, it would be possible to stay in contact with Bucky from then on. His whole face brightens up and Natasha can only smile along in wonder. 

When he finishes, she takes a deep breath and considers the topic she came to him to discuss.

“Wanda wants to meet with Vision.”

His eyebrows knit together and his thumb stokes along the length of her index finger. She feels more alive in that instant than she ever did. 

He takes some time to answer. 

“How come?” eventually the question crawls from between his lips and the words are considered and curious. 

“I think they might be a little bit in love.” 

Steve inhales deeply and nods.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would love to leave you with a reading suggestion. The ship is Bucky/Nat, so if that floads your boat, or if you simply don't care and want to read something very well writen, head over there:
> 
>  
> 
> [i will not be ashamed (of my tears)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4916287) written by Dialux


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote part of this ages ago. Then I needed to put all my time into my thesis and then Endgame came and I was devestated and I didn't want to write anything before I hadn't work through the emotional wasteland that was the aftermath of watching endgame... a few days ago, I thought to give it a try. The result, the end of this chapter escalates.
> 
> No Endgame spoilers, but please feel free to let me know your thoughts and feelings on it.

They fly into the US for the first time in months. They Visit Laura, Clint and the kids. Wanda slips away the morning after they arrive. They agree for her to be back before dawn on Friday. It is currently Wednesday. 

Natasha had spend hours behind closed bedroom doors with Laura. Steve had the decency to distract his ears all day to make sure he wouldn't overhear their conversation on accident. He did that by listening to music mostly. He also got an extended lecture on Disney plot lines and princesses at the kitchen table from Lila who had warmed up to him a lot quicker this time around. Clint and Sam, with the support of Cooper were working on the roof, as such spending all afternoon in the attic. 

Dinner had gathered the whole gang at the table at last. Steve was fast to volunteer his help to Laura and she joked about Clint joining Natasha and Steve staying here at the house. A slight blush appears at the top of his cheeks and Nat smiles warmly at him and tipped her head to the side before pouring oil into the fire.

“Who is going to cook for me then?” 

“McDonald's is a fantastic cook!” Clint offers and Sam raises his beer bottle in answer. 

“Cheers to that!” 

“Can we have McDonald's tomorrow?” Cooper throws in fast. Predictably. Laura stares her husband down, her lips pressed into a perfect line. Steve chuckls softly, eyes on his feet when he imagines them parking the jet at a McDonald's and walking in in full gear. He is sure Tony dogged that advertising offer very early on.

xx

“Please, Aunt Nat, will you tell us a story?” Lila begs as Laura starts to herd the kids towards the upstairs bedrooms after everyone was done eating, the table was cleared and the dishwasher loaded by Nat and Clint and after Sam had lost spectacularly against Cooper and Nat in three consecutive rounds of Uno.

Without hesitation and as soon as the kids where up the stairs, Nat and Laura in their tow, Sam deals a new hand for himself and Clint. Clint, with raised eyebrows, points out that they do have _real cards_ , but Sam vehemently continues to shuffle the Uno deck.

With a smile and his beer bottle, Steve gets up from the table and walks over to the bookshelves he had eyed all day. He stands in front of it and lets his eyes fly over the various titles. When something catches his attention, he draws the book out and reads the blurp. 

He loses himself a little in the task and he is almost surprised when Laura joines him a while later. He hadn't noticed her coming down.

“Tascha told me you enjoyed India.” Without waiting for confirmation, Laura steps close to the shelf and draws a book out and hands it to him. _The God of Small Things_ , the title reads.

“It's about family and a bit of mystery as well. It's heavy material.” Steve nods and values the recommendation.

“Take it with you. And everything else you think you would like.” 

“That's a very kind offer, Laura!” She rests her hand on his shoulder for a short moment and squeezes it, then smiles to accompany her nod. She then walks to join the boys at the table. 

Steve puts the _God of Small Things_ on the chair at the far end of the bookshelf and takes out another two books he had previously thought he might enjoy. Maybe he would get through one while they were here. He wasn't in a position right now where he could indulge himself in a hobby. 

It's his unconscious that picks up Nat's footsteps descending the stairs almost an hour later and it's the heavy smell of freshly washer hair that distracts his attention from the book in his hands. He closes it absently when Nat sits down beside him on the sofa, picking up one of the books Steve had pilled on the coffee table. She flips through it and her eyes fly over some lines but nothing seems to catch her attention. Until suddenly her eyebrows knit together. Her lips fall apart, but then close again and she shakes her head slightly and closes the book again, as if for a split second she had wanted to read something she saw out load. 

“Is Laura letting you dig into her selection?” She asks instead and puts the book back on the little stash in front of her.

“She offered for me to take one or two with me.” 

Nat raises her eyebrows and nods with a little smile on her lips.

“She must like you.” 

Nat and him sit in silence for the rest of the night. At one point, Nat wiggles herself to lay in the space beside him, her feet in his lap, her eyes on the phone in her hand. 

Sam, Clint and Laura at the table now evolved to tabletop games that challenged their comparative nature.

There was a steady and low conversation going on in the background with an occasional howl of excitement. It felt good. For a short moment, life felt kind and warm and good. And if Steve's hand on Natasha's knee bothered her, she kept it to herself.

xx

Clint stands in the kitchen, watching out the window to find Steve and Lila sitting on the steps together. From what he could make out, they were zooming in and out of google maps on her Stark Pad. 

He smiles to himself and picks up another cup to fill with coffee as soon as it's done and a glass of iced tea for Lila.

He thinks about what Laura told him last night, about the operation Nat had. He remembers what Sam said yesterday about Cap and Nat being the most oblivious fools to ever having being in love. And if he didn't have a hinch before Leipzig, he certainly came to the same conlusion as Sam today. He looks at Steve out there being absolutely content in this little friendship with Lila.

“Coffee is ready!” Clint calls over his shoulder. He hears the bedroom-door crack open.

“A year.”

Laura comes down the stairs and joins him in the kitchen, picking up another cup.

“What is in a year?” 

“She is pregnant within a year.”

“Nat? I give it nine month. It will be an accident. It will be dramatic at first. They will manage. It will be fine.”

“You gave that a lot of thought.”

“Of course I did. They are adorable.”

“The bet is on.”

To himself Clint thinks, he definitely will sneak a pack of condoms into both Nat's and Steve's bag. He grins and fills up the coffee cups. 

 

xx

They raid a hydracell in Paris and because nobody expects them to hang around after the chaos they accidentally cause, they stay. Making sure any collateral damage is accounted for. No one is left behind. 

They spend the end of summer in France. Roadtripping along countrylanes down south until they end up in Spain and then some and they catch the last heatwave when they reach Porto, where they stay for a bit before they spend a night in Lisbon where they have the best burgers outside of America and the air smells sweet and warm and like nothing else they experienced before. It burns itself into their memories. 

They easily ditch CCTV and people's views and tourist cameras. In the private of late nights spend on seashores, they assure themselves that they were doing the right thing.

xx

Steve and Wanda walk down a small street of Huelva. Behind them, a thin strip of light on the horizon that prevents them from blending fully with the night. They were in no hurry, going side by side on warm cobble stone. There weren't many people under way at this time of day.

“Thank you, Steve. For making sure we have this time together.” She almost whispers these words and Steve puts his arm over her shoulder and draws her into his side for a moment.

“It's nothing.” 

They were to meet Vision after sundown beside a small draper's shop. 

“I guess.”

“You deserve this as much as everyone else.” He adds and Wanda looks up at him but he starres ahead. His eyes wandering, checking their surroundings. When he doesn't meet her eyes, Wanda looks down to her feet and hangs onto her own thoughts. 

“You know that this includes you also.” She decides to say after a while and intends to leave it at that. And she doesn't expect Steve to answer because she is not sure if he values her contribution very much, but she hopes they give him something to think about.

As such, she is surprised when he whispers:

“I guess.” 

Then a cat jumps from a window-sill right in front of their feet, they are only startle a bit in suprise and while the cat crosses the road, they both look after it and their moment is gone. 

“He is here.” Wanda realizes and fastens up her step. 

xx

In Rio, shit blows up in their faces. Hydra knows they are coming. They are a small team, the four of them and five agents from Wakanda. And it should have been enough. It should have been an easy in and out. In general, it was a save enough plan, blowing up a money loundering cell in a backroom of an old, shabby hotel.

Turns out, it wasn't.

An explotion pushes Nat into a wall and when she doesn't move, laying face down on the floor between burning rubble and Steve watches from the other side of the parking lot, no way of getting to her fast, his heart stops. His heart stops and he cannot, for the life of him, breath - or move. All he can do is let himself be consumed by the fear of loosing her. His whole life is reduced to the idea of allconsuming grief. 

The moment stretches into a small infinity and that is when he realizes that no time had passed at all.

Still, the flames are creeping in on her and she doesn't get up. Steve needs her to get up. The paralysis that had prevanted him from jumping to her rescue in that first tenth of a second, melts away and already a red shimmer appears around her. Steve shoots a glance around the premeter and sees Wanda, distracted by combat, doing her best to shield Natasha from the fire. 

The closer he gets to her, the harder to tolerate the heat becomes and he is sure, weren't his suit fireprove, it would melt into his skin. He tries to signal Wanda that he is almost there and that she needs to let the energy-field drop so he can pick her up and-

A secondary explosion knocks him to the side. For another short infinity, he cannot hear or feel anything. No information reach his brain, he operates on complete instinct which makes him turn away from the flamball coming his way. His arms fly over his face and he roll into a ball against the wall and there is no way out between there and the flames in his back and perhaps the first thing he activally thinks is he might just be about to die. 

He cannot die, or Nat will die, is his second thought - and his next, and the one after that.

He pushes through the daze and up onto his feet again, but the smoke makes it hard to do anything. It also seems to eat up all the oxygen. The burning gas turns the smoke black. He doesn't see Nat and he doesn't see Wanda, he is comletely engulfed by the sharp heat and pushed into the backwall of the building. Nevertheless, he blindly makes his way to were he remembers Nat laying. 

Dizzier by the second, the smoke only clearing slowly, and the fire still blazing loudly, Steve stumbles into the direction of the burning car. .

“Nat?” 

What is supposed to be a shout is a whisper, ending in a sharp cough and inbetween all that chaos he couldn't even hear himself. He tries to see, but his eyes are burning and the smoke is only clearing slowly and he has to force his eyes from pressing shut. He has to force himself from staying upright, to not follow his instinct and run or at least fall down and give in to the lightheadedness which becomes heavier to handle with every cough. 

“Na...” it is impossibly hard to speak and the pain in his windpipe increases with every attempt. But he has to find her. He needs Nat.

“STEVE!!” 

Sam... relief floods his system, his heart beats in his ears and a high pitched sound pierced his wavering consiousness. He tasts blood on his tongue... his knees hit the ground... he realizes that he cannot breath. Not at all. Not even a bit. Panic rises up from the tips of his fingers into the center of his chest. 

Maybe he was dying, he thinks before he slips into unconsciousness. He hopes they find Nat.


	4. Chapter 4

_They walk along the shoreline in Greece and they absently note how hot the water is while discussing the color and consistency of bullets after impact._

_Then they suddenly realize that the house behind them is burning. It stands in full blaze and with absolute horror they share their understanding that Sam and Wanda are still inside. Desperately they try to scoop water with their hands but it is too hot to touch... and every time they have to let the water fall because otherwise their hands would burn off._

_Wanda is screaming and there is no possibility to get there. The island is ripping apart and they are on the wrong side, then it lifts and suddenly he realizes that he is alone, that Nat is also on the other side..._

“His heart-rate is skyrocketing.”

“Steve!”

“He is waking up.”

_Day after day, he spots Aesha hiding behind the shack at the far end of the field. It takes him a while to figure out that she is Aditya's sister._

_At one point he kicks a ball into her direction and while the boys on the field laugh wholeheartedly about him missing the goal so generously, his smile grows when the girl already had the ball picked up to carry it towards him. ___

_When he tells Nat about Aesha that night and how fast the boys had accepted her into their team, her smile is bright and warm and she kisses his cheek._

_He sits on grass. He is in Prospect Park and the sky is a bright, glowing red where it was a stunning blue only moments ago. Nat is sitting beside him and she rolls a soft yellow ball into the direction of their son who throws it back at her and laughs when Nat pretents to be hit. They have the same eyes. And Steve feels something deep in his heart that has never been there before._

He tries to breath but something blocks his airways. His fingers dig into soft sheets and no matter how hard he tries, how much effort he puts into the attempt, his eyes wouldn't open. 

“Shh Steve. It's fine. Just stay calm.” 

It's Sam. _It's Sam._

He tries to raise his arm and remove whatever was in his mouth but realizing something was going down his throat that made him gag and cough and the combination picked up on the panic he remembered feeling... the fear... the fire... his arm is too heavy. He cannot move. He feels paralyzed with tiredness. 

Nat. Nat... finally he can force his eyes to blink but it's too bright and he closes them again and tries to roll his head to the side to shield himself. The movement, while almost insignificant because something restricted his head from being able to move, results in white, hot pain in his neck and it takes a lot to not lose consciousness again. 

“Steve, Steve. Don't move. Help is on the way. You're going to be fine.”

_“Ma.” He rasps and a cough shocks his whole body into a surge of pain._

_“Shh baby. You're going to be fine.”_

_“Hurts... 's too much...”_

_“I know. I would do everything to take it onto myself.” His Ma runs a hand through his hair and replaces the hot wet cloth on his forehead with a cold one and the short relief is enough for him to slip back under._

_He wakes up in a modern hospital bed and Sam is there and soft jazz music plays in the background. He can breath all right, his throat is fine and there is an old familiar pain sitting in his lungs._

_Bucky is alive, he remembers. And he is in a bad place. He needs his help._

Something is not right with that thought. Bucky was alright. They had talked not long ago.

Understanding of who wasn't right hits him with a force.

“Nat.” he plans to shout the name into the room. But it comes forth as nothing short of his mouth falling open and a breath escaping his lips.

“Hey Steve!” It's Bucky and he opens his eyes to find him hovering over his head, blocking most of the light.

“Stay with us this time?” 

He manages to nod in agreement. He would stay awake, he needed to know about Nat.

He tries to say her name again. Swallows and a sharp discomfort dominates his thoughts for longer than he would like to.

“Don't try to speak. It's still all too sore” He lifts his arm and it becomes too heavy when he reaches his chest and he has to rest his hand then and there. 

He wants to ask what happened, so his mouth falls open again. Twice.

“Stubborn little Shit.” Comes Sam's voice from the foot of his bed and he looks down to find him standing with his arms crossed over his chest. He nods vaguely into his direction.

__His heart skips a beat when he notices Nat standing beside the door. Her face stone cold and her jar hard and unyielding. He raises his hand into her direction, lifts up, trys to sit, all weakness gone, but Bucky instantly pushes him back down._ _

__She turns to the door and slips out the room. Again he wants to push up, Bucky's hand presses down on his chest and his eyes flare up to him._ _

__“ nee' to 'ollow 'er...” The words are raspy and weak and hurt._ _

__“Don't. She is fine. You are not. And now shut up.”_ _

__“What happened?” He asks next. He doesn't understand what went wrong._ _

__“For god's sake.” Sam moans. “Are you for real?”_ _

__“A piece of metal logged itself into your neck, probably during the second explosion. It almost decapitated you, scrapped your aorta, your windpipe. The whole nine yards.” Sam comes around the bed and flops into a chair beside him when he finished speaking._ _

__Bucky's hand cramps into the material of the gown he is wearing and almost puts a little bit too much pressure on his chest. Softly he grasps for his friend's hand and he lets loose as if it took a reminder for him to let go._ _

__“When we found you, your heart had stopped.” Wanda's voice is small but steady and with an edge of an emotion Steve couldn't place._ _

__The breath leaves his body when her words sink in and suddenly, he does not feel like talking anymore. It is him now that cramps his hand around Bucky's._ _

__Wanda has stepped closer now and passes a cup of ice to Sam. It is then that Steve realizes how thirsty he is._ _

__'Thank you.' He forms the words with his lips while looking at Wanda and gladly excepts the ice and pops some into his mouth._ _

__“Effectively, everything has healed. But you need more rest, especially your vocal cords, they are extremely stressed.” Bucky explains next. Steve looks up at him and he is pale and there are dark circles under his eyes._ _

__“'m sorry.” He mumbles. “don' 'orry 'bout me.”_ _

__“You are joking, right!” Wanda steps up, pushes Sam's outstretched legs out of the way which makes him sit up straight._ _

__Suddenly the emotion Steve couldn't place a moment ago was clear as day. She was angry._ _

__“You almost killed yourself! What did you think running into that?”_ _

__“Girl, you're glowing, back up!” Sam is standing then and lays his hands on her upper arms._ _

__“He could have died.” She turns around in his grasp and looks Sam dead in the eyes. “HE COULD HAVE DIED,” she barks into his face and Steve doesn't know what to do, he doesn't know how to control the guilt that embraces every response that doesn't leave his mouth. Every: but I needed to get to Nat. Every: I was scared shitless. Every: my life didn't mean anything in that moment._ _

__“I know, Wanda. I was there. It's fine now. He is okay.”_ _

__Steve lifts his free hand and reaches for Wanda. She instantly flinches her hand away._ _

__“Don't. Please.”_ _

__“'kay.” He whispers and lets his arm sink and rest beside his body._ _

__Wanda steps away from the bed and then turns around to leave._ _

__“I am glad you are better.” She admits before she leaves the room._ _

__Sam lets himself sink back into the chair. Bucky turns his hand in Steve's so he is holding his hand now and he can make him relax his fingers this time around. He put the ice to the side. Silence falls over the room._ _

__It lasts for a while. Steve runs through the memories again and again but he doesn't come to any other conclusion. Wanda was right. He understands what he should have done. He should have taken over her battle, Wanda's, so she could concentrate on Nat before the second explosion._ _

__He had fucked up. Again._ _

__Steve inhales long and deep and through the pressure in his throat and when there is no air fitting into his lungs anymore, he arrives at the conclusion that Natasha means everything to him. There was no denying it any longer. He loves her._ _

__Shakily, he exhales._ _

__xx_ _

__It was an undeniable fact that something had changed between her and Steve. Until recently, Natasha had believed that it was her, that their relationship, their friendship which meant so much to her, was compromised by her emotions and the realization that she loved him, which in turn effected their partnership and consequently the team._ _

__And here they were. Steve in a hospital bed, recovering from a serious injury because he broke protocol to save her. She remembers all the situations throughout the years were the trust he had in her abilities and into knowing that she would save her own ass, was what made them so good partners in their line of work._ _

__Trust was the foundation of their partnership. Knowing the other so well that putting one's life into the hand of the other felt natural. In battle, they were each others extension. That's how well they worked._ _

__Something has changed._ _

__Natasha was angry, she was so, so hurt. The shock of coming to herself after the explosion and finding Sam frantically trying to restart Steve's heart and an agent of T'challa working at his neck, where a flat piece of metal was sticking, covered in blood and dirt... it horrified her. She hadn't slept since because every time she tried, that was what she saw. The moment in which he lay there, bleeding to his death, not breathing... It burned itself onto the insides of her lids and it scared her to an extent she had never knew to be possible. Never in her life had she been so scared for her own life than she was for his in that moment._ _

__While Natasha rushes to her room, she decides that there was only one thing that would ensure that everyone in their team made it out alive at the end of this mission. She turned on her heals and headed to find T'challa._ _

__xx_ _

__Wanda finds Natasha roaming the Quin Jet. She has her rucksack in her left hand, open and throwing in stuff that belonged to her._ _

__“What are you doing?” She asks when she steps in._ _

__“I am leaving.”_ _

__“No, you are not!” Wanda instantly opposes and steps up to her and grabs her bag._ _

__“Stop it. No.” She continues when Natasha sends her a hard glare, no sympathy or patience in her posture. As soon as she has her rucksack back, she rounds Wanda and almost walks away._ _

__Wanda's power field prevents her from stepping outside._ _

__“Don't do this.” She asks softly and watches as Natasha stands in front of the red glow, her back to her, her hands in fists beside her body and her head hanging low._ _

__“He loves you.” Wanda adds and doesn't see the point in not pointing it out._ _

__“Well,” Natasha whispers, still not turning back to her friend, “even more reason... Wanda look, we don't work.”_ _

__She turns only halfway, her arms now wrapped around her chest, her eyes still on the floor._ _

__“You haven't even tried.” Wanda takes a step towards her._ _

__“Just...,” Natasha begins to say, seems to consider her words for a while. “There is just no way,” she finally chooses to say._ _

__For a moment, Wanda lets the words sink in, maybe she even tries to believe them, tries to give Natasha the room she needs, the time to come to her own conclusions. Then, however, she decides against it, because Natasha knows what she is doing, she doesn't wish to leave so she can have her very own Eat, Pray, Love-experience. So she is as direct and honest as Natasha herself had taught her to be._ _

__“What are you afraid of?”_ _

__It is then that Natasha looks up, looses some of the hold she has on herself, lets the arms fall to her sides._ _

__“That he dies. Or you. Or Sam.”_ _

__Wanda stares at her and there is no comeback this time. She isn't surprised by the answer. But she needs to think about her words, about the hole in the argument, about how she knows she wouldn't win this fight._ _

__“Let the field down, please. I will keep in contact. I will clean the way, pick up on information, make your work easier. That is what I do best.”_ _

__Now Wanda has to look away, she swallow hard and doesn't know how to argue, doesn't know how to convince her._ _

__“It is not a good solution.” She pronounces every word slowly and in a whisper._ _

__“It works best for me.”_ _

__To herself Wanda thinks that it is selfish and egoistic of Natasha to say that. She also reminds herself that it is her right. It dislodges the undercurrent of her anger a bit._ _

__“You are lying to yourself,” she decides to says._ _

This time, Natasha doesn't answer. She steps closer again, smiles and means it. She leans into Wanda and she hugs her, long and close and, yes, she is lying to herself. But losing them and knowing they are alive is better than losing them and knowing it's her fault. Until recently, Natasha was convinced of one thing: together they were stronger, together, her and Steve could do almost everything. But their _together_ had changed. They couldn't relay on each other anymore, not before they had either overcome this thing between them or learned to deal with it, and right now they hadn't the time to learn to deal with it.

__She steps out of the embrace first._ _

__“Please let me leave.” Natasha fits her voice to be of the same resonance as Wanda's a moment ago._ _

__The two stare at each other for a moment. Then the red glow dissolves and Natasha rushes out._ _

**Author's Note:**

> There are rumors this ship is going to be canon I hear? Fantastic. I am f*cking exited. So excited!!! I am still going to leave this here, in case. I saw a lot in my fandom years, sooo:
> 
> Let's not be bullies about it! Just, let's stay in our lane? Okay. <3  
> Love you


End file.
